Lawsuits.Our Fights

August 3, 2023 Update

Discovery continues on this critical school mask case, which is set for trial in May 2024.   As many long-standing Legal Warriors Club members recall, on April 7, 2022, on behalf of Chris Palicke (as guardian ad litem to his son Aidan) and Free Now Foundation (formerly Children’s Health Defense, California Chapter) our attorneys filed a lawsuit for declaratory and injunctive relief and damages against Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District and some of its agents and school employees for imposing a harsh and unlawful “no mesh mask” policy in the middle of the ongoing school year.

Students who refused to comply with this sudden mid-year change in policy were harassed, isolated, and ultimately forced out of school into independent study. One such student was Aidan Palicke, a high achieving respectful student and captain of the track team who simply wanted to be able to breathe while attending his junior year classes. Rather than protecting this basic right to breathe, PYLUSD teachers and agents instead mocked, harassed, and abused Aidan, pulling him out of his classes, forcing him to drag a desk outside in the morning cold to be isolated from other students as if he were “diseased,” and encouraging other students to turn against Aidan for his principled stance. Ultimately, PYLUSD expelled Aidan for not complying with this sudden “mesh mask” policy, in violation of clear California Education Code provisions that strictly limit when and how long a school may remove a student from in-person schooling for “defiance” or for having an actual infectious disease.

In defense of these outrageous actions, PYLUSD has claimed it was “just following orders” from public health authorities — and tried to get this lawsuit dismissed twice. Fortunately, the judge in this case overruled both motions, and ordered the case to move forward.  On May 9, 2023, PYLUSD answered our lawsuit. FNF attorneys are now busily engaged in the fact-finding “discovery” stage, which includes interrogatories (strategic questions), taking depositions, and producing and/or reviewing loads of documents. This discovery process will likely shed further light on why PYLUSD agents and employees took such abusive and unlawful actions against their own students in the name of protecting “health.”

• FILED Palicke v. PYLUSD Complaint 4/7/2022

This is another case against a local Board of Supervisors who abdicated their statutory obligations during the declared and prolonged COVID-19 “emergencies.”

On February 21, 2023, our attorneys, on behalf of both CHD-CA/FNF and a local Alameda County citizens’ group, Alameda County Committee of Open Government (ACCOG), filed a Petition for Writ of Alternative and Traditional Mandate and an Application for Alternative Writ against the Alameda County Board of Supervisors (AC Board). The Petition alleges that, during the COVID emergency, the AC Board violated their statutory obligations under the emergency laws to review local conditions and to terminate the local emergencies as soon as conditions warranted and instead illegally delegated this statutory obligation to its health officer and other unnamed health officers outside of the County. The Petition further alleges that the AC Board also violated their obligations under the Ralph M. Brown Act to hold public and open meetings on the topic of the prolonged and ongoing local emergencies and to allow meaningful public participation on this topic of critical public concern.

Instead of conducting any local reviews as a Board and allowing public input on this issue, as is required by law, the Board delegated all of its authority to the County’s unelected health officer and unnamed officials in six neighboring jurisdictions.These unelected officials in turn agreed to act in lockstep regarding whether and when to terminate their declared local emergencies, without any input from the deeply affected public. Allowing unelected health officials to replace the Board’s own deliberative process or having unelected health officials privately deliberate with the Board without holding any public meetings are express violations of the Ralph M. Brown Act, also known as California’s Open Meeting Law (Government Code section 54950 et seq.) (the “Brown Act”). Under the Brown Act, “public commissions, boards, and councils and the other public agencies in this State exist to aid in the people’s business” and “the people, in delegating authority, do not give the public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.” (Govt. Code section 54950).

Unsurprisingly, counsel for the Alameda Board is now attempting to dismiss this entire lawsuit by filing a demurrer. FNF attorneys will file their opposition to the demurrer on September 19, 2023, and the hearing on this will be held on October 3, 2023.

September, 2023 Update

This is our college student vaccine mandate lawsuit. On June 14, 2023, FNF attorneys filed our opening brief for the appeal in this lawsuit against SCU’s illegal and ongoing student COVID jab mandate. On September 13, 2022, Santa Clara superior court Judge Christopher Rudy, a graduate of defendant Santa Clara University’s (SCU) own law school, dismissed our lawsuit against SCU without leave to amend. Dismissing a complaint without giving any opportunity to amend a single claim is extremely unusual for a trial court, as the standard a judge must apply on a dismissal motion is deferential to the plaintiffs/petitioners. FNF’s opening brief argues that Judge Rudy abused his discretion in not properly applying that standard, in adopting the arguments of the defendants/respondents, and in making findings of fact that are reserved for a jury. This college mandate lawsuit is particularly important given SCU’s strange insistence on continuing its unlawful COVID-19 student jab mandate, despite the fact that the COVID jabs admittedly do not stop infection or transmission and that the COVID-19 emergency has been declared “over” by all public health authorities, removing all possible justification for mandated medical interventions. Yet, SCU announced on May 1, 2023 that its incoming students must now take the bivalent booster shot — the one tested on a total of 8 mice (all of which got COVID after being “vaccinated” against it), in order to attend or continue to attend SCU. This announcement came a day after most students had committed to attending the school for fall 2023, likely foreclosing other college choices for any students who would have chosen otherwise had students known in advance. SCU also continues to allow religious exemptions for all faculty and staff, while younger healthier college-age students are not given that same option.

On September 12, 2023, Respondents filed their Appellate Brief in opposition to our appeal of the trial court’s dismissal of this critical college COVID mandate lawsuit. Our FNF attorneys now have until October 2, 2023 to file our Reply. Oral argument on this appeal may be set in December 2023 or early 2024.

• Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief 03-07-22
• Points & Authorities 03-10-22
• Points & Authorities 03-TRO Application 03-10-2210-22
• Glenn Decl 03-10-22
• Druker Decl 03-10-22
• Barke Decl 03-10-22
• Dr. Peter McCullough 03/19/22
• Jessica Rose Declaration 03/21/22
• FAC 06-24-2022 Final

October 24, 2023 Update

Just last week, the judge presiding over our Peggy Hall vs. Orange County Board of Supervisors case issued a terrible tentative ruling. The counsel representing Orange County argued that our lawsuit was now “moot”, since the local state of emergency had now ended, and it looked like the judge was going to rule in their favor. This was despite the fact that the substantive claims had already been found in our favor in earlier court hearings. This ruling would have dismissed our case before any legal precedent could be set. This could have been it. Case dismissed. 

Instead, at the hearing, our legal team turned things around. They convinced the court that there were still active claims against the County in dispute that prevented “mooting” the lawsuit, and the court gave us 30 days to amend and revise our original position, and keep our lawsuit going. 

“Under California law and rules of court, where there are changed facts and circumstances, a party must be allowed to amend their Petition to conform to this new reality. Free Now Foundation’s attorneys argued this critical point in court on Monday, and the judge, fortunately, agreed.”  – Free Now Foundation Legal Counsel.

Please consider donating to help us WIN this case. Even the smallest donation helps!

July 17, 2023 Update

This was our first case against a county Board abusing its authority during the COVID era. On May 3, 2022, CHD-CA (now FNF) joined an ongoing lawsuit by Peggy Hall, founder of The Healthy American, against the Orange County Board of Supervisors (“BOS”) and the County of Orange (“County”) to compel the OC BOS and the County to review the local conditions in the County to determine whether these local conditions continued to justify an ongoing local emergency and local health emergency for COVID-19 that were first declared in early 2020.

Under California law, the BOS has a statutory duty to review these local conditions and to terminate the local emergencies at the earliest possible time that conditions warrant. In this case, the OC BOS decided to completely abdicate its own legal duties and instead tie the end of their own local states of emergency to the termination of the state-wide State of Emergency declared by Governor Newsom. After joining the lawsuit, our legal team immediately filed an application for alternative writ to compel the OC BOS to show cause as to why it should not act in the manner required by law. On September 22, 2022, Judge Lee of the Orange County superior court granted our alternative writ application, denied the OC BOS’s demurrer in its entirety, and ordered the OC BOS to either comply with their duties to review local conditions or provide evidence showing their ongoing compliance. However, due to various dilatory tactics by opposing counsel, Judge Lee was removed from the case — and the OSC hearing was moved multiple times and finally pushed out until April 3rd, conveniently past the date of the termination of the state-wide State of Emergency, which finally ended on February 28, 2023.

Like many other Covid-19 lawsuits where a substantive ruling would go against the government’s overreach, Judge McConville, the newest judge in this case, used this delayed hearing date as an excuse to find that the Writ action was now “moot,” meaning that even though Petitioners have had a valid claim all along, which we did, the court could not now issue any effective relief. Opposing counsel is now using this abominable ruling on the Writ claims to try to dismiss the entire case as “moot” and recently filed a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. Our attorneys will oppose this motion, since without a substantive ruling, there is no reason why any California Board won’t repeat their illegal actions against citizens the next time a local “emergency” is declared. 

• Hall v. OCBOS Second Amended Verified Petition (to File) 5/4/2022

We achieved our substantive objective in this case! Due to the significant costs we incurred in battling against Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) illegal student COVID-19 “vaccine” mandate, we are now seeking to recover attorneys’ fees and costs under California’s Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5 (known as the Private Attorney General Statute).

LAUSD was one of the first school districts in California to mandate an illegal COVID-19 vaccination requirement for students ages 12 and over, in violation of existing state vaccination law. Attorneys for Co-Petitioners, Children’s Health Defense-California Chapter (now FNF) and Protection of the Educational Rights of Kids (P.E.R.K), filed suit against LAUSD and its School Board members on October 13, 2021 As a result of our significant litigation and advocacy efforts, LAUSD first delayed implementation of its illegal COVID-19 mandate until Fall of 2022 and then again until July 2023. Then in July 2022, in a related lawsuit, G.F. vs. LAUSD, the Court vindicated our position and ruled against LAUSD, finding that it had no legal authority to mandate COVID-19 vaccines at the local level as the ability to require school immunizations is fully occupied and pre-empted by existing state-law. Based on this favorable ruling, as well as the recent favorable appellate court decision in Let them Choose vs. San Diego Unified School District, our FNF attorneys have decided not to continue to pursue this action against the District and are now seeking recovery of CHD-CA’s legal fees and costs for prevailing on the substantive issues related to the illegal jab mandates. Meanwhile, PERK has retained separate counsel and will continue to pursue other claims against LAUSD beyond the now-rescinded jab-mandate.

We are very proud of our collective efforts to help LAUSD students and their families push back against an illegal “vaccine” mandate that LAUSD never had any legal right to impose.

• LAUSD Verified Petition 10/13/2021
• LAUSD Application for TRO 10/29/2021
• LAUSD Ex Parte OST Application 11/10/2021
• LAUSD PI Memo and Motion 12/07/2021
• LAUSD PI Reply Decl. Rose 12/08/2021
• LAUSD PI Reply Decl. Fleming 12/08/2021
• LAUSD PI Reply Decl. Kirsch 12/08/2021
• LAUSD PI Reply Decl. Ledbetter 12/08/2021
• LAUSD PI Reply Decl. Barke 12/08/2021
• LAUSD PI Reply Decl. Rogers 12/08/2021
• LAUSD Petition 02/01/22
• LAUSD Beckloff Minute Order 04/25/2022
• LAUSD Opposition to Demurrer to FAP 04/08/2022

CASE IS COMPLETED AND WE WON

CHILDREN’S HEALTH DEFENSE, CALIFORNIA CHAPTER (Now FNF) / PROTECTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS OF KIDS (P.E.R.K)

Piedmont Unified School District (PUSD) issued its own illegal school district vaccine mandate on September 22, 2021, a month after it admitted on the record that it actually had no legal authority to mandate any new vaccines. Our legal team filed suit against PUSD on November 18th, 2021. On January 11, 2022, Judge Seligman of the Superior Court for Alameda County granted our request for an Application for Alternative Writ, preliminarily agreeing that a local school district like PUSD has no legal authority to mandate a new COVID-19 vaccine. The Judge then stayed enforcement of the mandate, and granted an expedited hearing on the merits. Following this ruling in our favor, PUSD agreed to dismiss its unlawful local mandate. The parties have now entered into a confidential settlement agreement.

• PUSD Verified Petition 11/18/2021
• PUSD Verified First Amended Petition 01/02/2022
• PUSD Application for Alternative Writ 01/04/2022
• PUSD Reply to Writ App Opposition 01/10/2022
• PUSD Tentative Ruling 01/11/22